Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 19 September 2023, the Bureau of Meteorology—who we all lovingly refer to as the BOM, despite their failed attempt at changing their brand during desperate floods—announced that an El Nino event was pending. By January 2024, the headline on the ABC read 'Farmers frustrated after destocking following BOM's incorrect El Nino forecast'. Sky News had 'BOM's El Nino predictions "cost a lot of farmers a lot of money"'. This one from Beef Central asked the crucial question 'Did BOM's El Nino forecast bomb the 2023 cattle market?'

The BOM's forecasts are crucial to regional Australia, not just for farmers and agricultural businesses but also for our communities. At the time, despite people saying that the bureau's predictions were horrifically inaccurate, people were cutting the BOM some slack. One Victorian farmer quoted by the ABC at the time said he did not hold the BOM solely responsible as it provides, after all, a forecast, not gospel. But I wonder how those people feel now, after reading a report by the Australian National Audit Office. It turns out that the BOM has been scrimping on its asset management and maintenance program.

The BOM is responsible for providing weather, water, climate and ocean services across Australia and also to overseas clients. They currently have an operating budget of $440 million a year from the federal government, plus about $100 million annually from external sources through commercial enterprises. It should be managing $1.3 billion in non-financial assets, and the observing network assets make up approximately 28 per cent of the bureau's total asset base. The bureau conducted a body of work between 2018 and 2020 to model the cost of their asset management and maintenance program. They made a pitch for extra funding for this, which was duly granted in the 2021-22 budget by the former Liberal and Nationals government to the tune of $225.6 million in additional funding over three years, converting to $143 million each year after that, over 10 years, to maintain a proactive asset maintenance schedule consistent with industry best practice.

Four years on, we read the ANAO report, which has found that the BOM has not monitored or reported on whether the money for maintenance is actually being spent on keeping its asset base in order. The enterprise asset management plan approved in 2020 has not been reviewed since. The enterprise asset management system, known as EAMS and used for observing network assets and related IT equipment, was rolled out in 2021, with data transfer completed by 2022. Yet the ANAO report says:

In May 2024, the Bureau advised the ANAO that it is not yet able to rely on information from EAMS to report accurately on the performance of assets in its observing network.

The draft inventory management plan for replacement parts, which was drafted in 2022, remained in draft form for the next two years. Planned maintenance targets have not been met, instruments are failing to return data and assets have reached or are beyond the end of their useful life.

Meanwhile, the bureau is overseeing cost overruns on key projects, including the ROBUST computer data and security program. In estimates hearings, the bureau has repeatedly obfuscated about the cost overruns of the ROBUST program. I must commend Greens senator Barbara Pocock for her investigation and interrogation of the BOM on this issue. The final cost for ROBUST—well, is it final? The bureau's chief, Dr Andrew Johnson, has admitted there's still probably 10 per cent more work to be done. But we do know from costings that were released in September last year that the final cost was $866 million, which is almost $100 million over the original budget. Yet successive governments continue to trust the bureau to deliver.

From 2007 to 2017, according to a piece of work by the Weekly Times,which calculated every time we've given the bureau money to develop a go-to water data hub build, time and time again, as a single source of truth, the total is $450 million. That is an incredible amount of money, yet people working in the water industry say they never look at the bureau for water market data information. In 2022, yet again, in the Water market reform: final roadmap report it was recommended that the bureau be given responsibility to develop and implement a data systems framework to include a single national water data hub.

So they've been funded from 2007 through to 2017 to develop a single-source-of-truth water data hub, yet we've got recommendations from other agencies that we need a single water data hub, and they're suggesting BOM should do it. I question whether BOM are the right people, given they've already received $450 million and what they've produced is a webpage that no-one looks at, is out of date, reports behind other agencies' websites and is failing on every level. Credit to Dr Johnson, he must be the best salesman out there. He is still going to the government and saying, 'Let us be the experts in the room.'

Following the incredible flood events in 2022-23, I asked the BOM who owns all the flood gauge networks in Australia. The answer is multiple agencies. Some are local government, some are private enterprise, some are state government, some are bureau, but they've managed to put the pinch to government, which was accepted, for $236 million for a national ten-year program to enable the bureau to acquire and upgrade flood infrastructure, including high-priority rain and river gauges and supporting communications equipment. On the surface, a single owner of the flood gauge network would be sensible, but, after reading the ANAO report, how can I have confidence that the bureau are the right people to do that job?

We've seen their performance from the Lismore floods—appalling. People were reading the BOM's forecast and went to bed one night being told they had two days before the flood peak would reach and it still would still not exceed historic records, and then, at 5 am the next morning, the police knocking on their door telling them to get out and the flood peaking within 24 hours of those people going to bed. The trauma is still palpable.

We've seen similar failures in Victoria, in Rochester, Seymour and Echuca. In January 2023, the township of Menindee flooded despite the bureau not picking it up, because they say the Talyawalka Creek, whose swollen flows were coming into the system, is ungauged, yet this same agency has access to satellite systems that can actually monitor when a farmer is illegally diverting water from the system.

So do we trust the BOM to get it right? I accept and acknowledge that the minister has now asked the BOM for an urgent briefing to get to the bottom of what's gone wrong. But the ANAO report is absolutely enlightening reading, and I hope Dr Johnson comes to the next estimates prepared to answer questions.